CAIRO — Egypt’s defense chief warned that political unrest could bring about the “collapse” of the state, after almost a week of street battles killed dozens and piled pressure on President Mohamed Morsi.

After ignoring a curfew Monday night, protesters in the Suez Canal province of Port Said, one of three areas the president has placed under emergency rule, vowed Tuesday to continue their defiance. Monday, the main secular opposition bloc rejected calls by Morsi for a national dialogue, saying “serious” political discourse was needed, not security solutions.

The conflict between the political forces “and their disagreement on running the country may lead to the collapse of the state,” Defense Minister Abdelfatah Al-Seesi was quoted as saying in a statement posted on the armed forces’ official Facebook page. The political instability and economic challenges “represent a real threat to Egypt’s security.”

The unrest has gathered momentum since Jan. 25, the second anniversary of the start of the uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak, leaving at least 50 dead in the past week. It is undermining efforts to restore political order and revive an economy still struggling to recover. The pound has slid 7 percent in the past month, and the government is seeking a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.

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Morsi’s efforts to quell unrest and advance Egypt’s transition, including decrees that temporarily widened his powers and support for a constitution drawn up largely by Islamists and passed in a referendum last month, have only fueled the discontent.

The largely secular and youth activist-led opposition says he has reneged on campaign pledges and is intent solely on cementing Islamist rule at the expense of the nation’s interests.

Many of the key opposition groups, operating under the National Salvation Front alliance, have rejected Morsi’s calls for a dialogue. They say Morsi must accept responsibility for the latest deaths and set up a national unity government and a balanced committee to amend the constitution.

The front “takes its cues from the street activists, not the other way around,” Hani Sabra, a Middle East analyst at the New York-based Eurasia Group, said in an email. Opposition leaders like Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei “fear that meeting with Morsi would compromise their support at the street level,” he said. “The rift in Egyptian politics is likely to continue to widen and the likelihood of more explosive violence has increased.”

The rejection of dialogue by opposition leaders “reflects their lack of understanding of responsibility and the dangers” confronting the nation, Galal Mora, the secretary-general of the Salafi Nour Party, an Islamist bloc separate from Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, was quoted as saying by state-run Ahram Online.

The army, which ran the country between Mubarak’s ouster in February 2011 and Morsi’s election in June last year, has said it is taking no sides and is interested only in safeguarding the nation.

In Port Said overnight, thousands chanted, “Leave, leave,” drawing on the vernacular of the 2011 uprising in rallying against the Islamist president, whom they blame for the deaths there. Some hoisted what they called an “independence” flag. The military, which has been deployed in the city as well as in Suez, did not intervene.

The fatalities in Port Said came after death sentences were handed down against 21 people in connection with last year’s fatal stadium riot in the city that left over 70 dead. The province’s governor gave public employees the day off Tuesday and vowed he would work to have the curfew lifted if order is restored, the state-run Middle East News Agency reported.

In unveiling the 30-day emergency measures, Morsi warned that attacks on civilians and state installations would be dealt with firmly. Even so, the demonstrations still targeted local government buildings and police stations in several Nile Delta towns, the south and in the coastal city of Alexandria, Egypt’s second-largest.

Unrest also flared up in Cairo Tuesday as about a dozen people ransacked a Nile-front five-star hotel that overlooks the scene of much of the fighting. Crowds later swelled on the Qasr El-Nil bridge where the clashes of the past days have been concentrated.

One person was killed in the capital Monday. Two others died in Port Said and more than 240 were injured nationwide in skirmishes with security forces, the Health Ministry said in a statement.

A group of hooded activists, which first appeared on the streets during the anniversary protests last week under the banner of the “Black Bloc,” was described by the public prosecutor as “an organized group carrying out acts of terror,” according to MENA. He ordered its members be located and arrested. The group has called on its Facebook page for the overthrow of what it dubs a Muslim Brotherhood regime.

The tensions have sounded alarm bells in Western capitals. In Washington, Victoria Nuland, a State Department spokeswoman, urged all sides “to work together through dialogue” and called on the government to respect citizens’ rights.